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So What Are you Reading?: Generations

As to Biblical interpretation, I agree with "Damian" about avoiding literalism (I'm pan-denominational, myself).

A literal interpretation is sort of impossible to reconcile as well. Sort of like Star Trek continuity ;)….it's impossible to reconcile all the inconsistencies.

But the point of the Bible isn't to give a history lesson. I think some of my fellow Christians (some in my own family who are fundamentalist Christians) unfortunately think, basically, if the Bible isn't historical fact then somehow it loses its importance. It doesn't, at least to me. In fact, the beauty of it is in many ways, because it's not really intended to be taken literally, you can apply it's lessons even to today. The meaning can still be applicable, even if the historical facts are embellished.

I look at evolution. I studied biology in college. I believe in evolution. And I'll argue there isn't really a contradiction in Genesis to evolution--if you're willing to read the symbolism within the Bible. If you break evolution down into it's simplest description, it's basically the first chapter of Genesis. 1 day may represent a million years, a hundred million years or even a billion years. But it's the order of evolution as we understand it basically. First there was the seas and the land, then sea life, life on land, animals then mankind. That's evolution, basically, and for a writer thousands of years ago it's probably the best description they could give.

And science helps me believe in God because science teaches us that something can't come from nothing. Something had to create the universe. It didn't just appear. Now Christianity is a bit further down the path obviously. But I can't not believe in some higher being because scientifically it almost seems like it would be impossible for there not to be a God.

Well, I'm off track again--time for bed I think. I start rambling when I'm tired. But I'm fascinated by religion and politics (though I stay away from political discussions on the web....mostly.....;) ).
 
1. We live in an ordered universe. One in which physics doesn't merely have laws, but laws that lead to biology: life is not merely possible, but inevitable.

2. It is perfectly understandable that ancients would automatically assume that a deity or deities would demand mindless obedience: they had never encountered an artificial construct capable of moving under its own power, nor any source of motive power that did not appear to have a mind of its own, nor any artificial construct with more reasoning ability than, say, the ancient Egyptian version of a pin-tumbler lock. They would have no reason to believe that free will would be regarded as anything other than a defect. We, on the other hand, live in a culture where self-propelled, reasoning, absolutely obedient artificial constructs are child's play to build, but we have first-hand experience with how far intelligence and free will are beyond our reach, let alone our grasp. (Which of course leaves the Martian robot revolt in Picard more puzzling than ever.)

3. Every complex artificial construct Humanity has ever created has been the result of an evolutionary process. Cugnot's steam tractor evolving into modern automobiles. Ancient Chinese artillery and fireworks rockets evolving into the Saturn V. ENIAC evolving into smartphones and server farms. If we are created in the image of our Creator, then our creation process would logically reflect His, so why should knowledge of evolution in nature be a threat to an educated, reasoned faith in a Supreme Being?
 
OK, here's the first few pages of The Klingon Gambit:

Captain’s Log: Stardate 4720.1

Mapping of the Class-Q type planet, Delta Canaris IV, continues. This planet, discovered three years into our five year mission, is providing a needed break from deep space routine for the crew. The violent gravity waves emanating from the planet require constant orbital corrections, but the added work might prove worthwhile due to the possibility of life on the planet. Sensor readings are positive although in a part of the life-spectrum indicating beings unlike any previously discovered by a Federation starship. Excitement among the crew runs high. Morale has never been better.


Captain James T. Kirk felt the deck of the Enterprise vanish from under his feet. Grabbing a handrail, he steadied himself until the gravity fluctuations had passed. He glanced around the bridge and saw his officers busy themselves counteracting the adverse influence of still another gravity wave from the planet below.
“Mr. Sulu, report,” he ordered.
“Orbital corrections already made, sir,” said the efficient helmsman. Sulu continued to punch in orders to the ship’s control computer, his fingers almost a blur. Kirk nodded. The Asian knew his job and did it well. The captain continued his visual inspection of the bridge.
“Lt. Uhura, are those gravity waves affecting communications?”
“No, sir,” she answered. “Subspace is clear all the way to Starbase Sixteen. Do you wish to transmit now?”
“Not immediately. I still have to finish the annual efficiency report.”
“And if subspace transmission wasn’t possible, you wouldn’t have to do the report right away?” The Bantu woman’s eyes sparkled.
“I didn’t realize my motives were so transparent to the crew,” said Kirk tiredly. “Those reports are due too often. I’d rather be with Mr. Spock, seeing what that planet down there really has to offer.” He looked at the viewscreen and the dancing, shifting rainbow of the planet’s methane atmosphere. “It looks just like Jupiter, even to the large red spot,” he said, more to himself than to his communications officer.
“The similarity ends there, Captain,” came the level voice of Mr. Spock. The Vulcan had come onto the bridge, and Kirk hadn’t even noticed, being too engrossed in the sight of the gas giant. “Computer analysis of our previous sensor readings indicates life-forms similar to a sheet of paper.”
“How’s that, Mr. Spock?” Kirk looked at the imperturbable science officer, wondering if the Vulcan wasn’t deliberately baiting him. He had noticed a sly sense of humor creeping into the Vulcan’s words from time to time, but he had always discounted that as his own facile imagination at work. Humor wasn’t logical and, above all else, Spock valued logic.
“This is a new life-form, probably sentient.”
“Probably?”
“A ninety-four point two percent probability, Captain. The life-forms are slightly larger than your hand and less than a millimeter thick, due to the intense gravity of the planet. We have detected distinct roadways, structures believed to be cities and even indications of an ammonia ocean spanning trade.”
“But they’re only a millimeter thick?”
“Less than a millimeter. The exact thickness fluctuates due to food intake, movement and—”
“Thank you, Mr. Spock.” Kirk sighed. “I would like to know more, but I am afraid I must leave it in your capable hands for the moment. The annual efficiency and promotion reports are due at Starbase all too soon. I’d be more than happy to have you file the reports except it is a captain’s duty, and you are more efficiently employed studying Delta Canaris IV.”
“Logical,” agreed Spock, turning to his computer. His fingers inputted information as he stared into the blue dimness of his console display. Kirk knew the Vulcan was lost in a world of rapidly changing data, correlating it, digesting it and producing logical hypotheses for inclusion in the final report on the planet.
Reports, snorted Kirk to himself as he turned away. His life was plagued by a continual flood of reports. Status reports to Starfleet Command, matériel reports, utilization reports, efficiency reports—a starship captain had to be more of an accountant than a commander these days.
“Mr. Spock, you have the conn,” he said, going to the turbo-elevator. The movement of the elevator didn’t affect him like the fluctuations caused by the gravity waves from the planet. Long years in space had inured him to this familiar motion. The pneumatic hissing ceased, and the doors opened onto the deck containing his quarters. He had barely gotten to his desk when he remembered a disciplinary problem that he had failed to attend to earlier. Kirk punched the call button on the desk and said, “Mr. Scott to captain’s quarters immediately. And bring your chief engineer with you.”

He had just begun work on the reports when his door chime sounded.
“Come.” Kirk straightened as he saw Scott and the engineering chief stiffly enter the room and stand at ramrod attention in front of him.
“Reporting as ordered, sir,” said the dour Scots officer. “And I brought Chief McConel with me.”
Kirk found it hard to look with displeasure on the chief. Very attractive, she kept her red hair pulled back from her forehead and held in a small knot at the side. He saw a perfect complexion marred only by a trace of grime on one cheek, piercing green eyes . . . and a mind that was as agile as her lithe body.
“Chief McConel, are you aware that gambling is not allowed aboard ship?”
“Aye, sir,” she said, her slight burr a companion to Scott’s.
“You’re not denying that you were caught with elaborate gambling equipment in the engine room, are you?”
“No, sir, I am not.”
Kirk sighed. “Chief—Heather—I don’t care if there are games running. They keep the crew busy during slack times. You know that. This whole matter would never have reached my attention officially if you hadn’t rigged the roulette wheel with that laser.” Kirk leaned back, trying hard not to smile. “Tell me, how did you do it?”
“’Twas but a wee bit of hocus-pocus, sir,” she said, brightening. “The roulette ball is painted black. A mite of a laser beam against the ball and it dances to whatever tune I choose.”
“So that’s how . . . ” Kirk bit off his words. He had often wondered how he could have lost so much of his pay in such a short time at a casino on Argelius II. The captain shook himself back to the issue at hand. “Chief McConel, you will dismantle your gaming equipment—and that still you so cleverly hid in the machine shop—and put yourself on back-to-back shifts until I relieve you of the extra duty. Perhaps the added work will burn up that surplus energy of yours now being diverted to rigged games of chance.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Dismissed. And Mr. Scott, a word with you in private.” They both watched the chief leave, her behind twitching just the right amount as she went through the door. Scotty’s heavy exhalation told Kirk more than words could have.
“She’s quite pretty, isn’t she, Scotty?”
“Aye, Captain, thot she is.”

“And you let her get away with rigging the roulette wheel. It’s you I should have on punishment duty, but I’m letting you both off this time. Nothing will be entered on her record. I don’t want this showing up on the Enterprise’s efficiency report. Those desk-skippers at Starfleet would jump all over something like this. I know you won’t stop the gambling—you shouldn’t—but don’t let me hear any more about cheating. We will have fair contraregulation gambling aboard this ship while I am captain. Do I make myself clear?”
“Pairfectly, sair!” The burr heightened in his words, and Kirk knew that Scotty wouldn’t let his feelings for the chief get in the way of his duty again.
“Good. Now let’s forget about those reports for a minute and have a little—”
The buzz of the ship’s intercom interrupted him. He stabbed down on the call button and said, “Kirk here.”
“Captain, a message from Starfleet Command.” Uhura sounded excited.
“Flash it on the screen, Lieutenant.”
“I can’t, sir,” she said. “It’s encoded and tagged. ‘For Captain’s Eyes Only.’ You have to decode it yourself, sir.”
Kirk felt momentary surprise at this. Highest priority messages were routinely squirted along in microbursts and received through devious computer-controlled equipment, making interception highly unlikely. To further encode a message was almost unheard of.
Almost.
“Send the coded message down by courier, Lieutenant,” he ordered. Looking up at his engineering officer, he said, “Dismissed, Scotty. We’ll have to have that drink later.”
“Aye, sair. Be looking forward to it!” Smiling, the engineer left.
Kirk’s attention focused on his tiny viewing screen, as soon as the security man delivered the message cassette. Row after row of numbers paraded out until the viewing area was filled. Leaning over, he opened the captain’s safe, keyed only to his palm-print. The small decoding device inside hummed as he began copying the numbers displayed on the screen. When the message became intelligible, his face stiffened. Erasing the words, he activated the ship intercom.
“Bridge. Mr. Spock.”
“Yes, Captain?” came the calm tones of his first officer.
“Lay in a course for Alnath II immediately. Warp factor eight.”
“That is emergency speed, Captain.”
“Aren’t the engines up to it?” snapped Kirk.
“Of course they are, sir.”
“Warp factor eight, Mr. Spock. Our presence is required at the start of another interstellar war.” He sagged back in his seat for a moment, then hastened to get to his bridge. The Enterprise had to be made battle-ready before arrival.

Every character but Kirk is identified by her or his species, race or ethnicity. That's pretty racist.
Kirk's reaction to Heather McConel speaks for itself. So, it's pretty sexist.
And the writing is, to my eyes, nothing short of dreadful.

I used to make a point of buying non-Trek SF books by Trek writers. But I made an exception for Vardeman, and never did get around to adding any of his books to my library.
 
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I look at evolution. I studied biology in college. I believe in evolution.

Rather, you accept the objective reality that it occurs. It happens whether anyone believes in it or not, so defining it as a question of belief is a category error.


And I'll argue there isn't really a contradiction in Genesis to evolution--if you're willing to read the symbolism within the Bible. If you break evolution down into it's simplest description, it's basically the first chapter of Genesis. 1 day may represent a million years, a hundred million years or even a billion years. But it's the order of evolution as we understand it basically. First there was the seas and the land, then sea life, life on land, animals then mankind. That's evolution, basically, and for a writer thousands of years ago it's probably the best description they could give.

That's another category error, because the Book of Genesis isn't supposed to be a science or history text. That's not how the ancients thought about the stories they told; it's imposing a modern concept of science or journalism onto a text that wasn't written with that mentality. Their stories were metaphors for the values and principles they wanted to convey to their audience. Trying to reconcile a symbolic myth with literal science is like trying to reconcile a haiku with a cookbook. They're not trying to be the same thing, so there's nothing to reconcile.


And science helps me believe in God because science teaches us that something can't come from nothing. Something had to create the universe. It didn't just appear. Now Christianity is a bit further down the path obviously. But I can't not believe in some higher being because scientifically it almost seems like it would be impossible for there not to be a God.

Whereas I think it's anthropocentric to assume that the only way something can come into being is if a sentient entity like ourselves creates it analogously to the way we create things. If anything, I think physics says the opposite: There are many processes whereby things can come into being through the operation of natural law, and a conscious mind is one of those things that can eventually result from the operation of much more basic natural laws, an emergent property of simpler processes. If there were some higher sentience to the universe, I think religion would have it backward -- the universe would create it, not the other way around. (I think it was Carl Sagan, among others, who said that our existence gives the universe the ability to understand itself. If conscious minds are an emergent outgrowth of the interactions of physical processes in a non-sentient universe, then what would be the emergent outgrowth of the interactions of the universe's conscious minds?)

Plus it just pushes the question back one level: If God created the universe, what created God? And what created that in turn? It's not actually an explanation, just an added layer of complication. Of course, the same question arises with a non-divine cosmology: if the universe came from some earlier or higher physical process, what did that process come from? Science and religion both run into the same infinite ontological loop: If the universe arose from X, then what did X arise from? Which is a question I stopped asking myself long ago because it just made me dizzy. The fact that anything exists at all seems to be an irresolvable paradox. (And on some irrational level I'm afraid that if I confront it too directly, I'll burst the illusion and vanish in a puff of logic.)


2. It is perfectly understandable that ancients would automatically assume that a deity or deities would demand mindless obedience: they had never encountered an artificial construct capable of moving under its own power, nor any source of motive power that did not appear to have a mind of its own, nor any artificial construct with more reasoning ability than, say, the ancient Egyptian version of a pin-tumbler lock. They would have no reason to believe that free will would be regarded as anything other than a defect.

Oh, there are many cultures in the world that do not demand mindless obedience of their deities. In a number of non-Western cultures, deities are seen as playing specific roles in the universe, and they can get in trouble for not obeying those roles -- as when the indigenous Hawai'ians accepted Captain Cook and his crew as gods because their arrival happened to coincide with the way the gods were meant to arrive in a traditional ritual, then turned around and killed them when they came back later at the wrong time and in the wrong way to fulfill their required ritual/spiritual role. Then there are those spiritual traditions (seen in Greek myth and elsewhere) in which the gods are seen as capricious, uncaring natural forces who barely care about us, so that the best option is to appease them when you run into them but otherwise try to stay out of their way, or maybe try to win one god's favor for protection from the others.

I've always assumed that the idea of gods demanding absolute obedience was invented by priests and monarchs who wanted people to obey them absolutely and claimed they were just representing the will of their gods. That kind of thinking, that there's an overarching authority that everyone is required to obey, is an artifact of civilization and the kind of hierarchical authority structures that had to be invented to coordinate and manage human activity and resources on a large scale.


Every character but Kirk is described by her or his race or ethnicity. That's pretty racist.
Kirk's reaction to Heather McConel pretty much speaks for itself. So, it's pretty sexist.

Oh, that. Certainly it reads that way to modern eyes, but it was a pretty common writing style at the time. Certainly it reflects a larger systemic racial bias in society whereby audiences assumed characters were white unless otherwise specified, but that doesn't mean the writer was racist per se, just trying to be descriptive. You can find similar descriptions in many other Trek novels, if maybe a bit more subtle.

And the way the male characters talked about women was par for the course for TOS, and for cultural attitudes of the era.
 
Hmm. As I recall, even as recently as the early 1980s, it was rather common for ST novels to describe even the most familiar characters in some detail, including their ethnicity. Conversely, today, ST novels tend to assume perhaps too much about what readers already know about the characters.

There were some vintage Gold Key ST comic books, as I recall, in which the colorist apparently wasn't aware that Uhura was black.
 
There were some vintage Gold Key ST comic books, as I recall, in which the colorist apparently wasn't aware that Uhura was black.

You're thinking of the Power Records comics, specifically The Crier in Emptiness, where Neal Adams's accurate renderings of Sulu and Uhura were altered to change their ethnicities (Uhura became white and Sulu became black), and Arex was redrawn as a human named Connors (and given a Russian accent by the narrator, who may have mistaken him for Chekov). I don't think it was due to lack of awareness, I think it was some kind of a likeness rights issue.

But the colorist of Gold Key's first Trek issue didn't know Rand's hairdo was a beehive and colored the top part red under the assumption that it was a knit cap or something.
 
That's another category error, because the Book of Genesis isn't supposed to be a science or history text. That's not how the ancients thought about the stories they told; it's imposing a modern concept of science or journalism onto a text that wasn't written with that mentality.

I was just trying to present an argument where the two aren't as contradictory as some people, on both sides, try to make it out to be. I accept evolution as a scientific fact, but believe that all the pieces were put together and designed by God. So it's partially what we know and accept as scientific fact, and yes, part of it is my faith.

Plus it just pushes the question back one level: If God created the universe, what created God? And what created that in turn? It's not actually an explanation, just an added layer of complication. Of course, the same question arises with a non-divine cosmology: if the universe came from some earlier or higher physical process, what did that process come from? Science and religion both run into the same infinite ontological loop: If the universe arose from X, then what did X arise from? Which is a question I stopped asking myself long ago because it just made me dizzy. The fact that anything exists at all seems to be an irresolvable paradox. (And on some irrational level I'm afraid that if I confront it too directly, I'll burst the illusion and vanish in a puff of logic.)

Well, it is true we are incapable of grasping God. We have a tendency to anthropomorphize God into something we are familiar with (the grandfatherly figure, not unlike the image of the entity we saw in Star Trek V). To think of God as God truly is....I usually compare it to trying to grasp the concept of infinity. I've heard it said that the universe is infinite. Even when you pass all the galaxies in the universe, think of it as boundless. That even empty space goes on forever beyond that. The mind can't really grasp that. Something that goes on forever, infinite. To me, that's what trying to think of God as He is would be like. For me, though, it actually makes it a bit easier to conceive of God creating the universe. Nothing created God because God was always there and will always be there. There is no beginning, no end. There is to the universe obviously a beginning and an end. But God is infinite. So at least in my case there is no paradox because nothing could create something that exists infinitely.

Now, there are definitely matters of faith I accept, my Christian faith, that can't be proven scientifically. But yet I accept those. I happen to believe in God as a deity, or force, who cares about His creation, and Christ as someone who was sent for our salvation, and Christ is a person that we can relate to since He was a human being. And I follow the teachings of the Catholic Church as best I can because I felt that is what God wanted me to become--and as such I believe those teachings have value. But that I admit is more faith based. I can't prove it. But at the core since something can't come from nothing I feel at the very least there has to be some omnipotent being that created the universe. What that something is, well, I guess that's what depends on your belief. No one can scientifically prove what that is.
 
Just started on The Lost and the Damned by Guy Haley. It's the second of The Siege of Terra series following on from The Horus Heresy series.
 
I'd never even heard of "Power Records" ST comic books, but I think I probably have all of the Gold Key ones, a few as individual issues, and everything that was reprinted in the four bound volumes.

I'm reminded of some panel cartoons that Isaac Asimov described in one (or maybe both) of his joke books. Some were merely his own theoretical ideas, that had never actually been drawn.

At any rate, one involved God watching as the Earth was sterilized in a nuclear holocaust, and saying, "Well, there goes six days work."

Another involved a more senior deity looking over the Earth, and saying to God, something to the general effect of, "For that, you expect a doctorate?"

Personally, I find great religious significance in two familiar works of science fiction: Diane Duane's The Wounded Sky, and the original 1982 movie, Tron.
 
At any rate, one involved God watching as the Earth was sterilized in a nuclear holocaust, and saying, "Well, there goes six days work."

Another involved a more senior deity looking over the Earth, and saying to God, something to the general effect of, "For that, you expect a doctorate?"

I kind of always thought God had to have a sense of humor. I mean, let's face it, humanity is pretty messed up. We have to be good for some entertainment value if nothing else. What other species does some of the things we do? :lol:

If I were God I probably would have given up on us by now and just figure it'd be easier to start from scratch. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses :nyah:
 
It's actually a lot harder then you'd think to find a human behavior that at least one other animal doesn't also do. Chimps will more or less go to war with other groups, and dauphins do some pretty messed up shit to each other and other sea animals.
 
Oh, that. Certainly it reads that way to modern eyes, but it was a pretty common writing style at the time. Certainly it reflects a larger systemic racial bias in society whereby audiences assumed characters were white unless otherwise specified, but that doesn't mean the writer was racist per se, just trying to be descriptive.

And the way the male characters talked about women was par for the course for TOS, and for cultural attitudes of the era.
That sounds like you’re trying to say it’s OK because it was a long time ago, when folks didn’t know any better. Like, was it OK to own people as property because that’s the way things were done back in the Confederacy?

Unconscious racism is still racism. Cultural sexism is still sexism. Both were always wrong, even if lots of people believed they were a-OK.
 
That sounds like you’re trying to say it’s OK because it was a long time ago, when folks didn’t know any better. Like, was it OK to own people as property because that’s the way things were done back in the Confederacy?

That's uncalled for. Escalating right to slavery? Seriously? I don't deserve that, and you need to cool it.
 
Let's all just simmer down a bit.

FWIW, on the rare occasions when I anthropomorphize God, well, for some reason he looks like George Burns.
 
Just working my way through the Star Trek: A Time to,,, series. I'm currently on A Time to Love by Robert Greenberger. Of the first 4 novels in the series, i found Die to be the weakest. The super-wesley moments got old. I found Sow/Harvest to be a very solid story, and a great followup to the episode Conundrum.
 
Just finished Second Samuel, and moving on to First Kings.

Which puts me in "Pisseth against [the/a] wall" territory.

I recently read two conflicting commentaries on that phrase. One asserted that "piss" was always a vulgar word for that bodily function, and that the Jacobean translators always used it in reference to the "bad guys," as a show of contempt. The other, more plausible one asserted that it was the standard term at the time, but doing so "against a wall" was not how civilized men relieved themselves, and thus came to the same conclusion (i.e., that it was a show of contempt) from almost precisely the opposite premise.
 
The Disapperance by Phillip Wylie. There was a discussion about it a while back somewhere on this forum, and it interested me enough to track down a copy.

Interesting book so far.
 
I'm on Part 3 of The Last Best Hope. Since it will be some time before I can see Picard, could someone please tell me which non-TNG (meaning main cast and Maddox) characters in the book appear on the show? I'd love for Raffi to show up, even in a flashback.
 
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